MY HOPE IS BUILT
Lyrics: Edward Mote
Music: William B. Bradbury
Arrangement: Philip Percival & Alanna Glover
Emu Music Ltd. Sheet music £2.50
emumusic.com
In historian Andrew Snyder’s provocative book On Tyranny: Twenty lessons from the Twentieth Century, he encourages reflection on our past to see how even democracies can collapse into authoritarianism. Without a link to the past through books and Scripture, he says, we cannot see the errors of the present.
With this and current conflicts in mind, I found myself listening to EMU music’s reworking of the 1834 hymn, My Hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. I was reconnecting to another age, which had none of the benefits of modern medicine, but had a clarity about where true hope lay. I thought, what a good practice it is to sing something in church that is older than yourself.
EMU’s version of this song is not the only reworking of these words. Cornerstone is an anthemic song from the Hillsong stable that is powerful and emotional. And yet EMU’s version captures more closely the original context of the author and minister Edward Mote. He describes how the words of the chorus and some verses came to him, and how in the following week he visited the dying wife of a friend. With no hymnbook available, they all sang this new hymn together, and it gave tremendous comfort. With the encouragement of his friend’s wife, Mote went on to add two more verses and publish it.
What this recording does is to capture that original intimate atmosphere of quiet faith and trust. Using the tune Solid Rock, the traditional melody is retained but reharmonised, enabling it to be more ‘band-friendly’. By that I mean less chord changes, which make a more flowing song with smoother transitions and interesting suspensions and harmonies. It has an instrumental track (in this case a cello) weaving around the link between the verses and this really adds to the beauty of the piece.
And so I thought again, how good it is to sing in a contemporary style, something older than yourself. For Mote’s words are now available to a new generation in an engaging new arrangement.
This is so important. With the Industrial Revolution, 19th-century Britain was going through a major transition. It was a time of disruption and disquiet, but here is, as Mote’s original title puts it – ‘the Immutable Basis of the Sinner’s Hope’. Reconnect with Christians in the past as they affirm that this Rock stands firm.
